Head coach Steven Naismith believes his players can take a lot of positives from their pre-season defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Tynecastle Park on Wednesday night.
The men in maroon gave as good as they got in the first half and were unfortunate not to find the net, with Kyosuke Tagawa and Yutaro Oda both coming close.
Hearts lost Frankie Kent shortly after the half-hour mark. The defender unable to continue after bravely heading away a James Maddison free kick and five minutes later, Maddison middled for Brennan Johnson to give the visitors the half-time advantage.
Lawrence Shankland was introduced at the interval and levelled the scores just seconds after the break, but Spurs made 11 changes at the break and came on strong in the final quarter of the match, eventually running out 5-1 victors.
“We’ll take a lot from it,” Naismith told Hearts TV at full-time.
“Yes, the scoreline is disappointing and you look at it and see the five goals, but in the goals that we lost, it’s maybe one small detail that’s wrong, but with the level you’re playing against, you get punished at every opportunity and I think that was shown in the goals that we conceded.
“I felt especially in the first half, we carried a threat. We had as many good chances as they did, a lot of what we’ve been working on, in terms of the structure of the team, was really good and that’s the pleasing part.
“We didn’t come in at half-time having had no shots on goal and no real threat. We were patient at times, but we had to be, as if you go toe-to-toe with a team like Spurs, they’ll pick you off and that’s probably what happened later in the game.
“We changed our players, we bring some younger players on, who are just starting out in the game. They’re bringing young players on that have had two- or three-year’s experience at a smaller club and then Spurs have bought them for 10 million pounds.
“The game becomes a bit stretched, the mistakes are evident, and we get punished. For our younger players, I remember clearly when I was a young player and you play against these teams, you’re a bit in awe of who you’re coming up against. How quickly they move the ball, the quality, speed and power of them, but very quickly you can go from playing in a friendly, to playing against teams like that in a competitive fixture.
“That’s what the young players need to take away from what is a great experience. But I’m really pleased with a lot of aspects of the game. It shows we’ve got real pace, competition for places and I must also say that this fixture comes at a time when this fixture is in the diary. Ideally, we’d have this as our last game, like we did last season against Leeds.
“We’re still in the phase where the players are working really hard, so they’ve come into this game fatigued, but they showed their quality at the right times, and I think we’re in a good place between now and the start of the season in two weeks.”
There is just over two weeks until the start of the William Hill Premiership, which will see Hearts open their league campaign at home to Rangers.
Between now and then, the pre-season work continues with further friendlies lined up for the Jambos as they prepare for the season opener in Gorgie.
“This week the players are feeling their most fatigued as they’ve been working as hard as they have in the first week, but we’re now getting games, so we’re asking a lot of them.
“The next two weeks, you do start to bring those sessions down and that sharpness hopefully comes through. That’s the aim. You can get carried away and feel the result, but what we did in the game a lot was really good.
“Some of the goals we lose are disappointing, but it’s small margins and that’s what we’ll take away. We’ve got another game on Saturday, then the following Saturday and that’s good preparation for the start of the season.”
